sweet emotion • jess mariano

| seven

『 chapter seven 』
07| absence makes the heart grow fonder

Xander and Jessica O'Neal sat opposite the table from each other, their hands clasped looking like a wedding ring advertisement.

They made sure I sat at the end of the table with a clear view of the both of them, it felt like a board meeting.

I chomped on my fairly big slice of Cherry pie, my favourite dessert. "What do you two weirdos want?"

Jessica's knuckled had turned white from the amount of pressure she squeezed Xander's hand with. "We have some news."

"Oh my God," I spoke, causing pieces of chewed up pie to fly out of my mouth, "Are we moving?"

"Don't be silly, why would we move now that your mother's pregnant?" dad slapped his hand over his mouth once he realised he had socked the surprise.

Jessica kicked him from underneath the table with slight annoyance evident in her eyes, "Xander!"

Xander shrugged, "Surprise!"

Instead of feeding them a reaction, I just slowly finished my pie; allowing the anticipation to kill my sweet parents.

"So?" mom watched me dab my mouth with my napkin, the suspense completely frustrating her.

I shrugged nonchalantly, waited a minute, then beamed brightly. "That's amazing! I'm so happy!"

Mom and dad's chests sunk as they released the deep breaths they had been holding.

I hobbled over to my mom to hug her from behind, planting a pie crumbed kiss on her otherwise immaculately clean cheek.

She screwed her nose up in disgust, "Gross, Teddy."

"Where's my kiss?" dad pouted, playing the typical man demanding praise. But I was a daddy's girl, so I gave in instantly to run over to him and plant a sloppier one on the man who appreciated any type of kiss. "That's my girl."
✧

Washing my hair felt nice, even if I did it every night, the ritual never failed to make me feel like a new person as I appeared out of the shower steam.

Normally, I'd have to wash my hair at stupid hours of the morning because of how late I got home. But, I had taken the day off because I was too tired to work, which was my version of being sick.

When the white coil wired phone set on my bedside rang, I was startled. I wasn't used to getting phone calls. Dad had only insisted that I had a phone in my room so he didn't have to answer the phone when Macy used to call on her travels, expecting it to be work.

I held it to my damp ear, waiting for the other person to speak before I did. I was weird like that, the way I saw it was they called me. They should announce why, and who. "Hello?"

"Hello?" I replied in the same uncertain tone as the caller.

"Teddy? It's Jess." that was something I never expected. Why was Jess Mariano calling me?

"Why are you calling me? Not that it isn't a welcome surprise. But, a surprise is pretty self explanatory." I hadn't meant to ramble.

"I was laying in bed reading. I couldn't concentrate. I was trying to figure out what colour your hair was."

His words had rang about some nerves in me, he was confessing that he was thinking about me; more importantly that he couldn't stop. It was distracting him.

I chuckled, twirling the phone wire around my forefinger, "It's brown, Jess."

"Are you sure? That's what I was thinking, but there are times when it looks blonde. I feel like your hair can't even decide what colour it wants to be. It's perplexing me."

Rolling my eyes was my natural defence against the butterflies he kept resurrecting in me. "Jess Mariano, did you seriously just call me to talk about my hair?"

"Specifically the colour." he joked, then paused. "Why, were you doing something more interesting?"

"If getting dressed is interesting, sure." I shrugged, letting him know subtly he had disrupted me and my house wasn't accustomed to warm me up when cold water was dripping on my shoulders from my hair.

"Do you want me to go?" Jess' question sparked a frown on my lips.

I didn't want him to, no. "Wait, I'll get dressed really quickly."

Keeping to my word, I left the phone on my bed as I rubbed the water off do my body then slipped into my cosy pyjama set.

"Okay, I'm back." and with a towel turban wrapping up my hair.

"I didn't actually want to hang up."

"I know. I had a feeling."

"You have me all figured out, don't you O'Neal?"

"What can I say? Our friendship is very informing."

Jess coughed from the other side of the line, "Goodnight, Teddy."

"Sweet dreams Jess." I couldn't help but feel as though his happy tone had depleted after my friend remark. Did he not want to be my friend? Had I read him wrong?

I shook the thoughts of Luke's nephew out of my mind, successfully clearing it before my head hit the pillow.